Brother Isa, forgive me for taking so long to respond; I’ve been so busy with college academics and athletics.
Francis Dvornik’s work is very useful for defending the sainthood of Photius the Great but Dvornik is incorrect about the 879-880 council being ecumenical. On the contrary, the following works demonstrate that the Catholic Church did not revoke the ecumenical status of the 869-870 council:
(1) Grumel, Venance. "New Light on the Photian Schism,”
Unitas 5 (1953), 140-148.
(2) Jugie, Martin.
Le schisme byzantin, apercu historique et doctrinal. Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1941.
The “council” of Hieria of the Iconclasts called itself Ecumenical too.
Red herring. This Iconoclast council did not have the approbation of the Pope, whereas Pope Adrian II and Pope John VIII both called the 869-870 the eighth ecumenical council.
Evidentially the number rose to 102 in the last session, but it started with just two dozen. If Ecumenical, it would be the least attended. Constantinople IV 879 had 389 bishops, one of the best attended: actually only Chalcedon had more. The “legates” of Alexandria and Jerusalem to the 869 council seem not to have been sent by those patriarchs.
True, it has the lowest attendance of any ecumenical council, but it still had the necessary qualifications in terms of geographic representation. Could you elaborate on and give a source for your statement that the Eastern legates were seemingly not sent by the patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem? Thanks.
He’s the same Pope who accepted Constantinople IV 879.
Pope John VIII, desirous of reunion, accepted the abrogation of the disciplinary measures against St. Photius the Great and accepted his reinstatement as Patriarch since St. Ignatius was dead, but he did not accept the condemnation of the
Filioque doctrine (q.v. the section after the next).
The 869 council itself failed to name the Seventh Ecumenical Council.
The 869-870 Council says, “We also know that the seventh, holy and universal synod, held for the second time at Nicaea, taught correctly when it professed the one and same Christ as both invisible and visible lord, incomprehensible and comprehensible, unlimited and limited, incapable and capable of suffering, inexpressible and expressible in writing.”
Given the mileage from the False Decretals and the Donation of Constantine, I always find this rich.
The text of the whole 869 council are of dubious authenticity, conflicting, and mutilated in key spots, i.e. on the filioque.
I won’t get into the red herring of the Donation of Constantine and False Decretals because that is a topic big enough for its own thread. Could you elaborate on and source your statement that the 869-870 council text is mangled and shady? Thanks.
Calvinist historian Philip Schaff says in “Conflict of the Eastern and Western Churches and their Separation” in his History of the Christian Church, "To the Greek acts was afterwards added a (pretended) letter of John VIII to Photius, declaring the Filioque to be an addition which is rejected by the church of Rome, and a blasphemy which must be abolished calmly and by, degrees.”
Besides the notoriety of the Photian party for altering texts, the letter itself is suspicious. Thus Cardinal Josef Von Hefele, Bishop of Rottenburg, says in the 1879 edition of
Conciliengeschichte, Vol. IV p. 482, “
Ich kann nicht glauben, dass je ein Papst seine Stellung so sehr vergessen habe, wie es Johann VIII gethan haben müsste, wenn dieser Brief ächt wäre. Es ist in demselben auch keine Spur des Papal bewusstseins, vielmehr ist die Superiorität des Photius fast ausdrücklich anerkannt.” God bless anyone fluent in German who can help us out here with an exact translation, but the sense is that it is incredible that a pope, the supreme pastor, would have forgotten so many of his prerogatives and almost expressly recognized the superiority of Photius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, to the Pope of Rome; cf. note {2} at the bottom of this post.
Cf. Ρ. Stephanou, Berichte zum ΧI. Int. Byz.-Kongress Korreferate, ΙΙΙ, 2, pp. 20 ff.; V. Grumel, “Le décret du synode photien de 879-880 sur le symbole de foi;” ΕΟ, 37 (1938), 357-72; idem, “Le ‘Filioque’ au concile photien de 879-880 et le témoignage de Michel d’Anchialos,” ΕΟ, 29 (1930), 257-64; V. Laurent, “Les Actes du synode photien et Georges le Metochite,” ΕΟ, 37 (1938), 100-106; idem, "Le cas de Photius dans l’apologétique du patriarche Jean ΧΙ Beccos (1275-82), au lendemain du deuxième concile de Lyon,’ ΕΟ, 29 (1930), 396-415.
This citation comes from Milton V. Anastos, Aspects of the Mind of Byzantium (Political Theory, Theology, and Ecclesiastical Relations with the See of Rome), Ashgate Publications, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 2001. ISBN: 0 86078 840 7; Ch. 16 The Patriarch Photius and his disputes with Rome @
myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/milton1_16.html; needless to say, Anastos, as an Eastern Orthodox apologist, draws different conclusions in the body of the chapter as well as in the rest of the notes.
The 869 council required the members to sign on to the Formula of Hormisdas, which is odd as the apologists of the Vatican claim it showed papal supremacy in the sixth century. The 869 was dealing with the fact that as many bishops as the emperor couldn’t strong arm (Pope Hormisdas told him to use force), refused to sign, included bishops under Rome.
The letter of Pope Stephen that I referenced is the smoking gun which shows that Rome had not revoked the ecumenical status of the 869-870 council, but had accepted the 879-880 council in a limited way as I explained above.
Well, papal supremacy was now becoming a topic of dispute thanks to St. Photius the Great daring to excommunicate Pope St. Nicholas I the Great in 867,{1} despite the constant witness of the Councils and Fathers to the primacy of the Roman See and the pope{2} so it should not be considered odd that the 869-870 council members had to sign the Formula of Hormisdas to confirm they were Catholics in good faith.
{1} Pope Honorius was excommunicated but this was much different because he was already dead and the excommunication was by an Ecumenical Council which is presided over by the Pope and has no authority apart from him:
“Because of his primacy, the Pontiff of Rome is not required to attend an Ecumenical Council; but
without his participation, manifested by sending some subordinates, every Ecumenical Council is as nonexistent, for it is he who presides over the Council” (–St. Methodius —N. Brian-Chaninov, The Russian Church (1931), 46; cited by Butler, Church and Infallibility, 210) (Upon This Rock (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1999), p. 177).
“It is not true, as this Canon states, that the holy Fathers gave the primacy to old Rome because it was the capital of the Empire; it is from on high, from divine grace, that this primacy drew its origin. Because of the intensity of his faith Peter, the first of the Apostles, was addressed in these words by our Lord Jesus Christ himself ‘Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep’. That is why in hierarchical order Rome holds the pre-eminent place and is the first See. That is why the leges of old Rome are eternally immovable, and that is the view of all the Churches” (Ibid.)
{2} Huysman, Will R. (9/9/2008) . “Seeds of Papal Infallibility Dogma Pre-Vatican I.” The Banana Republican.
thebananarepublican.blogspot.com/2008/09/seeds-of-papal-infallibility-dogma-pre.html.
God bless you and yours!
